Monthly Archives: January 2015

Nerf just released a new tripod mounted fully automatic Nerf gun with dual reciprocating barrels called the Nerf N-Strike Elite Rhino-Fire Blaster. With the modifications that I made to the Nerf Vulcan Xtreme, the Rhino-Fire seemed to be an ideal candidate for conversion to an HPA airsoft gun. Since I’ve done a dual PolarStar Fusion Engine Nerf gun already, I decided to give the Rhino a try using Wolverine Airsoft SMP HPA engines.

The Rhino uses motorized flywheels to shoot the Nerf darts, so the firing mechanism was relatively simple which left a lot of extra room for Nerf to add a mechanism to reciprocate the barrels, which ended up taking the majority of the space withing the Nerf gun housing. The Wolverine SMP is a very small HPA engine designed to fit within a gearbox shell, so it turned out they were the perfect size to fit within the Rhino.

I utilized some of the same techniques from recent a M2 and FN 30 builds and created 3D printed blocks to support the engines and integrate a custom hopup. An adjustment screw was added to the back of the support blocks, between both of them, to allow the cross angle of the engines to be adjusted.

The stock trigger switch was removed and replaced with several leaf microswitches. Once switch turned on the box mags and reciprocating barrels, and one trigger switch for each SMP. The stock trigger was a multi stage sliding switch and it just didn’t work reliably as a trigger switch. I used my SMP mini circuit boards to link the trigger and full auto switches to the SMP wire harness. Two SP3T slide switches were added so allow each SMP engine to be in safe, semi, or full auto mode. To make this work I modified the mini circuit boards and added a diode to allow the slide switches to handle all three modes using 3 wires.

The two drum mags were modified to use a MAG brand box mag BB feed mechanism. 3D printed parts were used to create a mount for the feed mechanism as well as make a cover plate and fill port. Each drum mag will hold about 4000 bbs and the MAG feed mechanism can easily reach 40 rps, especially if 11.1v lipos are used.

The Wolverine SMP powered Nerf Rhino-Fire is a very fun but frightening airsoft gun. The larger hollow out barrels of the Nerf gun amplify the sound of each shot making this HPA airsoft gun one of the loudest I’ve used. Combined with the relatively high rate of fire delivered by the SMP, the cacophony behind the two laser streams of BBs, anyone trying to oppose the Rhino dual SMP would certainly know trouble was heading their way!

Happy Airsofting!

– Rudy

Paintwork by Marcus Floro

Paintwork by Marcus Floro

Paintwork by Marcus Floro

Paintwork by Marcus Floro

Here are some images of the stock Nerf Rhino internals and externals, for reference.

The MP40 is another iconic WWII gun, and I finally had an opportunity to convert it to use the PolarStar Fusion Engine thanks to Steve Nagy, who sent his out to get the full HPA upgrade.

The MP40 airsoft gun uses a very unique gearbox design. To have the Fusion Engine fit in the gun, the existing gearbox shell was cut and milled to house the V2 Fusion Engine upper cylinder. The stock trigger switch was removed and replaced with a microswitch so there would be room for the valve air lines. The fire select was also handled by adding a microswitch which is activated by the full auto selector plate lever.

The design of the MP40 allows for room behind the gearbox to house the battery, which provided plenty of room for the FCU and a small lipo. A mini circuit board was used to link all the switches to the wire harness, and a custom length nozzle was needed since the engine was installed set back from the front of the gearbox face.

The MP40 also has an interesting magazine and hopup setup, so a bit of work was done to get those parts to line up properly, but now that it’s powered by the PolarStar Fusion Engine, it brings the reliability of HPA powered gun to this WWII classic.